Categories
Regulating Protest social media

The Hacker Crackdown

In a nation of laws, not of men — as the old phrase puts it — we may not fight our ideological fights “by any means necessary.” People have rights. Governments and civil opponents have to follow the rules to contest others’ actions.

Yesterday, in “#GoPoundSand,” I re-​told the tale of GiveSendGo, the “Christian crowd-​funding  site,” and how it stepped up to the plate and took off where GoFundMe failed — and how the Canadian government was still trying to censor its ability to facilitate giving and receiving money online.

No sooner was it up here at ThisIsCommonSense​.org and the story ramped up another level. A group of online saboteurs took it offline and redirected site travelers to GiveSendGone​.wtf.

Called “hackers” by the major media, that’s not exactly right. But close enough for non-​specialists. I’ve been lectured on the difference between hacking and “cracking” and other malicious Internet sabotage by tech-​savvy friends in the past. But I’m not the person to engage in pedantry on this subject.

Worse — and more malicious — was the collecting of the names of the donors with an aim to leaking the list. “The unidentified hackers condemned GiveSendGo for allowing users to fundraise legal fees for those involved in the Jan. 6 riots and for platforming the Freedom Convoys,” explains Christopher Hutton at the Washington Examiner, “noting that an Ontario court had frozen the entire endeavor.”

Once upon a time, hacker culture was the realm of “anarchists” and “dissidents” etc. Nowadays? Not so much: this effort was squarely on the side of establishment institutions and narratives.

It is almost as if the “hackers” were paid government agents.

They certainly aren’t pro-​protest rebels.

The GiveSendGo site was offline as of the evening of the 14th, when this report was being finalized.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Categories
government transparency too much government

Big Anonymous Is Listening

A newspaper report brought a smile to my face and a strange sense of … relief, reassurance. A group of hackers known as Anonymous has apparently cracked into and tape-​recorded a conference call held between the FBI and Britain’s Scotland Yard.Anonymous Twitter Account

The call was to discuss the international investigation of the Anonymous hackers.

“The #FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal [communications] for some time now. #OpInfiltration,” read a taunting tweet about the audio file.

An FBI agent, insisting on speaking anonymously, said, “It’s not really that sophisticated.” The anonymous government agent explained that the Anonymous group had somehow intercepted an email with the call’s information. The agent offered that the FBI is “always looking at ways to make our communications more secure.”

Apparently, Anonymous has quite the work ethic. Shortly following the penetration of FBI/​Scotland Yard security (so to speak), down went websites for the Greek Ministry of Justice, the Boston Police Department, and the lawyers representing a U.S. Marine implicated in the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

Now, I don’t generally support hacking into government computers or taking down people’s websites. I’m more laissez-​faire. But, actions by Anonymous to force government transparency are helpful, may even sport a certain revolutionary justice.

Is Anonymous on my side? More so, I bet, than this scary national security state that now thinks it can assassinate or incarcerate an American citizen without charge or any legitimate judicial process on the orders of one man: the president.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom

Thou Shalt Not Trespass

Some people are creeps. 

On Independence Day, someone — or a group of someones — broke into Fox News’s Twitter account for politics and put out false notices about the death of the United States President. Apparently, they meant this to smear Fox News, which, though calling itself “fair and balanced,” is in truth a conservative counter to the vaguely-​to-​staunchly leftward bias of ABC/​CBS/​NBC/​CNN/​MSNBC. The popularity of Fox really bugs many folks; some become unhinged on the subject.

And they forget that they should obey the law. And principles of decency.

Now, I don’t know what law in particular was broken. I can’t name it. But, just as I need no city council ordinance number to tell a stranger to get out of my house, after he entered without permission (finding the key, perhaps, in its secret spot in the garden — and hey: what was he doing in the garden anyway?), just so no one needs a special law to know that logging in to Twitter and trying a bunch of obvious and not-​so-​obvious passwords to gain access to someone else’s account is wrong. 

We know this by common law and common sense and simple, everyday morality.

I have a simple bit of advice for all political activists. Say you are angry and you want to really hurt your “enemy.”

First ask yourself: Is what I want to do unjust?

Lastly, you might want to consider: Is it tasteless?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Steal This Free Document

Is it possible to steal a free good? Ask a lawyer. She’ll look it up, probably in federal court records.

Now, our federal courts use a not-​very-​user-​friendly database system, known as PACER, for distributing public records. These records are the work product of democracy. Federal law prohibits copyrighting the information, making it public property. But the PACER system nevertheless requires lawyers and others who want to access court decisions to plunk out eight cents per page to get them.

Worse than this, the database isn’t keyword searchable.

Enter the geeks.

In a free market, a potential demand meets supply by the entrepreneurial minded. In this case, it’s just the freedom-​minded, the transparency-​minded. Some Harvard and Princeton affiliated computer whizzes developed a new tool or two to retrieve these documents little pieces at a time, planning to place them in a truly searchable system.

And then the courts opened the records to law libraries without charge, and one hacker wrote a PERL script and started downloading the whole database, in huge, streaming chunks.

Half a month later someone noticed. Egads, someone was stealing free information!

The FBI investigated, started following the infiltrator.

So, what do you do when someone steals public information? Exactly what the FBI determined, in the end.

Yes, sometimes “nothing” is the proper response.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Smash Hack Attacks

Add one more news story to all the others about how your private data is not secure in any database.

In May, a gang of hackers demanded $10 million ransom in exchange for not posting the personal information of millions of Virginia residents on the Internet. 

Yikes, I’m from Virginia!

The Virginia Department of Health Professions confirms that there was indeed a recent breach of its servers.

If marauders get your name, birthday, and social security number, they can make life a living hell for you. Some of these jokers commit crimes in the name of the identity they stole. Guess who ends up getting arrested.

No, the databases are not secure. Still, Big Brother keeps trying to compel us to stick all our private data in one huge database to be tethered to a national ID card. The latest approach is to require all state ID cards to follow federal data and biometric protocols. And then link every state database together until it’s all one big database. The fate of this federal project is uncertain, since — thank goodness — some state governments are refusing to play along. But the feds will keep trying.

If the government succeeds, cyber terrorists would need to pull off only one big hack attack to jeopardize the privacy and security of every card-​carrying American. 

I’m against being forced to be a sitting duck. How about you?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.